


Grief and Comfort

by NammiKisulora



Series: Jonny deals badly with Nastya going Out [2]
Category: The Mechanisms (Band)
Genre: Angst, Cuddling, Drinking, Gen, Hangover, Hurt/Comfort, Post-Story: Out (The Mechanisms), Vomiting, featuring a hungover Jonny and a kind Drumbot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-30
Updated: 2020-12-30
Packaged: 2021-03-11 01:08:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,508
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28426797
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NammiKisulora/pseuds/NammiKisulora
Summary: Jonny is still dealing badly with Nastya going Out, but this time around Brian actually succeeds in forcing some comfort on him. Maybe he even gets Jonny to talk about his feelings?
Relationships: Drumbot Brian & Jonny d'Ville, Jonny d'Ville & Nastya Rasputina (past)
Series: Jonny deals badly with Nastya going Out [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2082120
Comments: 4
Kudos: 36





	Grief and Comfort

**Author's Note:**

> I give you this companion piece to Forcible grief councelling, where Jonny gets the threatened with a hug. This time around, he gets it.
> 
> CW vomiting and graphic hangover; rated T for drinking and swearing.

He keeps seeing her everywhere, every time they land on a planet. A flash of brown hair, a swish of a long coat disappearing around a corner, stray tones from a violin… but it’s never her, always someone else. Someone whose guts he hates, only for the crime of existing and not being her. Sometimes he kills them. More often he just leaves, to find some dingy bar or illegal club to drain and trash.

Tonight he never got around to the trashing part, if himself doesn’t count. Someone is shaking his shoulder.

“Sir? Sir, you can’t sleep here”, a voice says in a faint Cyberian accent.

“Fuck off”, he mutters, trying to settle his head more comfortably on his arms.

“Sir, I’m sorry, but I need to ask you to leave. We’re about to close.”

Groaning, he pulls himself upright, rubbing his bleary eyes as he sways in the chair. There’s a bottle on the table with a splash of amber liquid in it, and he grabs for it. It’ll wake him up a bit, he thinks, but the woman is faster and snatches it out of his reach. Finally he looks up. She’s tall and thin, and her long brown hair obscures her face.

“N-nastya?”

She turns her head, and her face is a healthy, human pink. He narrowly misses her feet when he vomits, and doesn’t even make a token protest as she picks him up by the scruff of his neck and drags him outside.

*

“Have you ever seen him like this?”

“Fucking wasted? Yeah, like a billion times?”

“No, he was – he was crying, Ashes, crying and rambling about Nastya the whole way back to the ship. I haven’t heard him say her name in over thirty years, but he wouldn’t shut up about her. Then he threw up on me and passed out.”

“Are you surprised he’s still grieving? I mean, we all are, and she was always closer to Jonny than anyone else.”

“No, I know. It was just… unnerving to see him fall apart like that. He didn’t even threaten to take me apart screw by screw if I ever mentioned it to anyone.”

“Still time for that, I bet.”

*

“Jonny?”

“No. … _eurgh_.” He makes a face at the taste in his mouth and tries to chase after the last traces of sleep, but it’s a lost cause. His head throbs as if a very bad brass band has taken up residence inside his skull and his mouth is dry and sticky, tasting as if something very old has crawled inside and died. He rolls over with a groan and immediately regrets it as his stomach churns, threatening to rebel entirely.

What he needs is a bit of Raphs patented hangover cure, and whatever she said after that last incident in the lab, she won’t refuse him… right? All he has to do is crawl to her lab, preferably blindfolded, and ask her very, very nicely, and then he’ll feel better soon. Carefully, he tries to sit up but quickly aborts the motion. He swallows thickly and forces himself to take deep breaths. Alright, he’ll crawl to her lab and ask her very, very nicely as soon as he can get up without immediately being sick. Which is not right now.

There is another soft tap on the door, stabbing like a cleaver through Jonny’s brain.

“Jonny? Can I come in?” Brian’s voice is low and gentle, but it’s still far too loud.

“No!”

“Alright, I’m coming in.” And to Jonny’s dismay, that insubordinate piece of brass opens the door and slips inside, taking care to move softly.

“Who the fuck flipped you to mean mode?” Jonny whines, but Brian just chuckles.

“Last time? You. Right now I’m on MJE, though.”

“But I told you not to come in! _Urgh_.” Jonny snaps his mouth shut and buries his face in the pillow.

“And I just happen to think it’s the morally right thing to do right now. Move over.” It’s easier to just do it than argue, so Jonny scoots in towards the wall, taking deep breaths through his nose. Brian fluffs the pillows for a moment before lying down next to him. Jonny squints at him.

“Careful, drumbot, I really don’t feel good.”

“You know, you could have warned me last night, too. Ruined my best waistcoat.”

“… oh. Fuck.”

“Quite.” But Brian doesn’t look angry, only worried and so kind Jonny has to close his eyes.

“What d’you want?”

“Just check on you. You weren’t doing so great last night.”

“Look, I get if you’re pissed about the waistcoat, I’ll get you another one.”

“I don’t care about the waistcoat, I care about you.”

“… just fuck off now, will you? Let me suffer in peace.” He intends to do a dramatic flop to face the wall, but both a renewed wave of nausea and Brian’s hand on his shoulder stops him.

“Do you remember anything from last night?”

The first answer that presents itself is a firm _No_. He’d spent the afternoon strolling through the city, bored and antsy and seeing flashes of – And then he’d decided he’d had enough of sightseeing and wanted to wreak some havoc instead, preferably of the drunk variety. Then he just… hadn’t made it so far as the actual havoc-wreaking part of it. The memories from after he entered the bar are only fuzzy shapes in his mind, except –

Brian’s chest is hard against Jonny’s face, but his hands are gentle as he pulls him close.

“There was a woman, she worked in the bar. For a m-moment, I thought it was N- _her_.” He remembers the stupid surge of hope, hope that it’d really be her this time, that he’d found her again – and then, the crushing emptiness when he saw the face that wasn’t hers. And then, with his face squished into Brian’s chest, Jonny finally says the words he has refused to acknowledge, even to himself, for nearly fifty years. “I miss her. I miss her, and it _hurts_. I’ve never missed anyone before, but I miss her every single day, because she was never supposed to not be here.”

Brian’s arm tightens every so slightly around him, a question as much as reassurance. Jonny sighs deeply and hisses a sharp breath at a renewed stab of headache, but he doesn’t protest, so Brian tightens his arms around him. Jonny tenses for a moment before relaxing into the embrace. Brian’s shirt is soft against his cheek, and he swallows around the lump in his throat. This is why he never talks about her! His heart stutters and ticks loudly in his chest, and he shifts to be able to rub angrily at it.

“I let her go, Brian”, he murmurs, his eyes shut tight to stop the burning tears from spilling over. “I fucking _let her go_ , when I should – should have stopped her, forced her to stay, fucking killed her enough times until she realised I wouldn’t let her go!” He whimpers as he remembers the sight of her – no, of _Nastya_ – stepping out of that airlock, how he immediately regretted not trying harder to stop her, but they were already speeding away from her and every hope of reaching her was soon lost. “But instead I just – I just –” His voice cracks on a sob, and he sniffles angrily, paying for it with a throb of his head. “We’re not supposed to lose _each other_! We’re not supposed to _leave_!”

Brian only rubs little soothing circles on his back, silent but for the soft whirr of his cooling fans and the delicate machinery powering him. He holds Jonny close and lets him cry for a while before pulling something out of his pocket. It’s a corked beaker, filled with something glowing a vicious, vibrant purple. Jonny pulls back and glares at him.

“Is that what I think it is?” he growls, his voice raw from crying. Brian hands him the beaker.

“Raphaella la Cognizi’s very own hangover cure, yes. She asked me to tell you that next time you should just fucking die instead, because you are still not forgiven and this is a special favour for me, not you.” He pauses. “I don’t think it’s poisoned, but you never know with her. Willing to risk it?”

“You bastard, you had it the whole time!” Jonny snags the bottle from him, unplugs the cork and tosses back the contents in a single gulp. He gags on the taste and has to take a few deep breaths with a hand pressed over his mouth, but mercifully it stays down. Within a minute, his eyelids are growing heavy and sleep is tugging at him. The nausea is dying away, and with a tired sigh, he settles down with his head on Brian’s shoulder. “I’ll kill you if you ever tell the others about this”, he mumbles. Brian rubs his shoulder with a quiet chuckle.

“I know. Go to sleep, Jonny.”

And Jonny does. Brian is gone when he wakes up.

**Author's Note:**

> I really couldn’t figure out a believable way to make this happened with Jonny in an uncompromised state, so… *shrug* If this one works? Well, it's up to you!
> 
> Kudos and comments mean the world to me <3


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